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770 DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. January, 1863 [[line across page]] [[3 columns]] [[column 1]] strengthen the hearts of our brave troops in the field, convince the world of our sincerity, give a fuller meaning to the declaration of Independence, and put peace forever between the conscience and the patriotism of the people. When a deed is done for freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast Runs a thrill of joy prophetic trembling on from East to West. But will that deed be done? Oh! That is the question. There is reason both for hope and fear. The promise is yet unretracted, the rebels are still in arms, bold, active, unyielding, strong and defiant. There is not a sign of weakness on all the Southern horizon, at this writing. Their army is said to be shoeless, coatless, hatless, tentless, blanketless, half starved and deserting, but this is on paper. On the field they tell a different story especially in all the Great Battles of Virginia, and we hope for Emancipation none the less, because this is so. The being in rebellion was the ground for the promised proclamation. This ground within nine days of the first of January holds good. Not a single rebel State has grounded its weapons since the twenty second of September. Thus far the President is dared to do his worst, thus far the villany of the South is spur to the virtue of the North, and affords reason to hope that we shall have the promised proclamation of freedom to all the Inhabitants of the rebel States. On the 22d of September, as we have said the President declared that he would issue, on the first of Jannary 1863, a proclamation of Emancipation Abolishing Slavery in all the Slave States which should then be in rebellion. But alas, he made these a burden of what should have been a joy. He reached that point like an ox under the yoke, or a Slave under the lash, not like the uncaged eagle spurning his bondage and soaring in freedom to the skies. His words kindled no enthusiasm. They touched neither justice nor mercy. Had their been one expression of sound moral feeling against Slavery, one word of regret and shame that this accursed system had remained so long the disgrace and scandal of the Republic, one word of satisfaction in the hope of burying slavery and the rebellion in one common grave, a thrill of joy would have run round the world, but no such word was said, and no such joy was kindled. He moved but was moved by necessity.——Emancipation——is put off——it was made feature and conditional——not present and absolute. While however, there are grounds for supposing that President Lincoln will duely issue his proclamation on the morning of the first of January. The absence of all mention of purpose to do so, in his recent message, his reported saying that the rebellion is already substantially suppressed, his parliaing with the border State men, his avowed readiness to change his opinion, whenever he should be convinced, the tremendous pressure likely to be brought to bear upon him, by the conservators of slavery the apparant lack in him of any vital hostility towards slavery, the declared motives for the measure being only military, not moral or political necessity, the democratic pro-savery gains obtained at the North since the 22d of September. The space given is his late message to compensated Emancipation, all served to cast a doubt upon the promised and hoped for proclamation, [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] which only the event can remove or confirm. So stands the case within one week of the first of January. The suspense is painful, but will soon be over. Our paper shall wait for the day and the deed, that it may carry especially to our transatlantic readers the result whatever it may be. [[line]] REMARKS OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS AT ZION CHURCH ON SUNDAY 28. OF DEC. [[short line]] MY FRIENDS:——This is scarcely a day for prose. It is a day for poetry and song, a new song. These cloudless skies, this balmy air, this brilliant sunshine, (making December as pleasant as May,) are in harmony with the glorious morning of liberty about to dawn upon us. Out of a full heart and with sacred emotion, I congratulate you my friends, and fellow citizens, on the high and hopeful condition, of the cause of human freedom and the cause of our common country, for these two causes are now one and inseparable and must stand or fall together. We stand today in the presence of a glorious prospect.——This sacred Sunday in all the likelihoods of the case, is the last which will witness the existence of legal slavery in all the Rebel slaveholding States of America. Henceforth and forever, slavery in those States is to be recognized, by all the departments the American Government, under its appropriate character as an unmitigated robber and pirate, branded as the sum of all villiany, an outlaw having no rights which any man white or colored is bound to respect. It is difficult for us who have toiled so long and hard, to believe that this event, so stupendous, so far reaching and glorious is even now at the door. It surpasses our most enthusiastic hopes that we live at such a time and are likely to witness the downfall, at least the legal downfall of slavery in America. It is a moment for joy thanksgiving and Praise. Among the first questions that tried the strength of my childhood mind——was first why are colored people slaves, and the next was will their slavery last forever. From that day onward, the cry that has reached the most silent chambers of my soul, by day and by night has been How long! How long oh! Eternal Power of the Universe, how long shall these things be. This inquiry is to be answered on the first of January 1863. That this war is to abolish slavery I have no manner of doubt. The process may be long and tedious but that that result must at last be reached is among the undoubted certainties of the future! Slavery once abolished in the Rebel States, will give the death wound to slavery in the border States. When Arkansas is a free State Missouri cannot be a slave State. Nevertheless. This is no time for the friends of freedom to fold their hands and consider their work at an end. The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance. Even after slavery has been legally abolished, and the rebellion substantially suppressed, even when their shall come representatives to Congress from the States now in rebellion, and they shall have repudiated the miserable and disastrous error of disunion, or secession, and the country, shall have reached a condition of comparative peace, there will still remain an urgent necessity for the benevolent activity of the men and the women who have from the first [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] opposed slavery from high moral conviction. Slavery has existed in this country too long and has stamped its character too deeply and indelibly, to be blotted out in a day or a year, or even in a generation. The slave will yet remain in some sense a slave, long after the chains are taken from his limbs, and the master, will retain much of the pride, the arrogance, imperiousness and conscious superiority, and love of power, acquired by his former relation of master. Time, necessity, education, will be required to bring all classes into harmonious and natural relations. But the South will not be the only part of the country demanding vigilence and exertion on the part of the true friends of the colored people. Our chief difficulty will hereafter, as it has been here-tofore with pro-slavery doughfaces, at the North. A dog will continue to scratch his neck even after the collar is removed. The sailor a night or two after reaching land feels his bed swimming from side to side, as if tossed by the sea. Daniel Webster received a large vote in Massachusetts after he was dead. It will not be strange if many Northern men whose politics, habits of thought, and accustomed submission to the slave power, leads them to continue to go through the forms of their ancient servility long after their old master slavery is in his grave. Law and the sword can and will, in the end abolish slavery. But law and the sword cannot abolish the malignant slaveholding sentiment which has kept the slave system alive in this country during two centuries. Pride of race, prejudice against color, will raise their hateful clamor for oppression of the negro as heretofore. The slave having ceased to be the abject slave of a single master, his enemies will endeavor to make him the slave of society at large. For a time at least, we may expect that this malign purpose and principle of wrong will get itself, more or less expressed in party presses and platforms. Pro-Slavery political writers and speakers, will not fail to inflame the ancient prejudice against the negro, by exagerating his faults and concealing or disparaging his virtues. A crime committed by one of the hated race, while any excellence found in one black man will grudgingly be set to his individual credit. Hence we say that the friends of freedom, the men and women of the land who regard slavery as a crime and the slave as a man will still be needed even after slavery is abolished. [[line]] THE PAPER FAMINE. [[short line]] For a time, during the fist year and a half of the war, owing to the number of our paper mills and the large stock of material on hand, we of the north were comparatively well supplied with paper and at reasonable prices, while the south, the land of cotton, was at once reduced to absolute destitution and could scarcely find paper upon which to print its spurious currency. Its newspapers in many cases were abandoned for the want of paper——while others were reduced in size and printed on the coarsest material. All going well with us, we laughed at the straits to which the rebels were reduced and hailed their destitution as an ally in bringing them to submission to the just demands of the Constitution and the Union.——But the South, thoroughly in earnest and little given to reading, easily dispensed with this [[/column 3]]
